Blog entries tagged gardening

Tour the Ultimate Chilehead Garden

Lois Manno — Thu, 11 Aug 2011 14:09:39 +0100

Whether pepper gardening is your passion, or you’re just getting started with that first pot of plants, from now through October you can visit the gardens at New Mexico State University’s Fabian Garcia Science Center in Las Cruces. There you’ll see peppers being grown the way the pros do it, and pos...

Mark and the Beanstalk

Lois Manno — Tue, 09 Aug 2011 18:49:45 +0100

Before we go on, let’s get a few things straight. I didn’t trade three hundred pounds of steak to a slick city peddler for a few magic beans (it was jalapeño seeds). Nor did I gain a goose that passes precious metals. If I did, I’d be writing this from my personal moon casino.

Rea...

Presto, It's Pesto!

Dave DeWitt — Sat, 06 Aug 2011 10:48:29 +0100

One of my favorite summer things is fresh pesto—spiced up, of course. And one of the main ingredients is basil, although cooks substitute spinach, Italian parsley, and cilantro for the basil on occasion. There are more than 60 species and var...

Fiery Foods Now Available Worldwide

Dave DeWitt — Sun, 24 Jul 2011 19:32:57 +0100

Mail-Order Copies Now Available!

My popular bookazine on chile peppers and fiery foods will be on the newsstands of all the big box stores for another month, but for convenien...

Scorpion Fields Doing Great

Dave DeWitt — Mon, 04 Jul 2011 16:02:16 +0100

Marlin Bensinger reports on his field of 'New Mexico Scorpion' chiles in a field near Las Cruces: "The peppers are starting to get their growth spurt. Most peppers are 9 to 10 inches tall. No bloss...

Battle for the World's Hottest Record Continues

Lois Manno — Tue, 21 Jun 2011 15:39:52 +0100

Whenever someone tries to lay claim to the biggest, best, or most intense record for pretty much anything, they run the risk of being challenged.

When the subject is the world's hottest pepper, the stakes are high, bot...

Chiles More Popular Than Lettuce, Peas, & Corn in the Garden

Dave DeWitt — Sun, 12 Jun 2011 17:56:31 +0100

Courtesy of MNN

My Superhots from Cross Country Nurseries

Dave DeWitt — Sun, 08 May 2011 15:34:41 +0100

Here's what my superhot chiles ('Trinidad Scorpion' and '7Pot') look like after they arrived from Cross Country (chileplants.com). They are healthy and vigorous, and are now hardening off under the sem...

Improve Your “Foodprint”: Farming and Climate Change

Kelli Bergthold — Mon, 25 Apr 2011 02:04:57 +0100

In an article posted on The Atlantic’s website last week, Gary Paul Nabhan, co-author of Chasing Chiles: Hot Spots Along the Pepper Trail, addressed the relationship between farming in the Southwest and climate change—both food production and food security have been cast into question with the growing ...

Top Five Chile Plants at Cross Country Nurseries

Dave DeWitt — Fri, 22 Apr 2011 07:58:12 +0100

The top seller of live chile bedding plants in the country, Cross Country Nurseries, dba ChilePlants.com, has listed their top five best selling varieties, and it's no surprise that superhots dominate the list.

This position figures because of all the s...

SuperHot Bedding Plants and Seeds Available

Thu, 17 Feb 2011 13:13:33 +0100

By now you've undoubtedly heard about the ongoing competition for the hottest chile in the world award. Whether it's 'Bhut Jolokia', 'Trinidad Scorpion', 'Fatalii', or others, there are two trustworthy locations for bedding plants and seeds.&...

Break Out of the Winter Doldrums!

Dave DeWitt — Thu, 13 Jan 2011 12:21:46 +0100

We chile gardeners are getting twitchy. We look at our garden plots, many of which are buried in snow, and we yearn for the growing season. Okay, guys and gals, buck up! You can, indeed, take some action in the "off" season. Here's a quick checklist:

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Harald Zoschke on German Superhot Testing

Dave DeWitt — Sat, 16 Oct 2010 19:50:22 +0100

Harald Zoschke, our key chilehead correspondent in Europe, reports:

Our Calabrian-grown 'Bhut Jolokia' tested at 818,386 SHU (twice the result of Assam-grown 'Bhut' analyzed at the same lab in Hamburg, btw.!)
The Indians' superhot 'Chocolat...

Expedition Heat: In Search of What Makes Peppers Hot

Kelli Bergthold — Mon, 23 Aug 2010 05:06:46 +0100

Chile peppers are hot, and we love them for it! From mild bell peppers to the insanely hot Bhut Jolokia, peppers can have an incredible heat range. But have you ever wondered why our favorite chile peppers are so hot? Join an American ecologist, his weary team of graduate assistants and scientists, ...

Coming Soon: Hatch is Back!

Kelli Bergthold — Wed, 11 Aug 2010 22:30:22 +0100

It’s that time of year here in New Mexico—the air will soon be ripe with the fragrant scent of roasting Hatch green chiles; mouths will water, and tongues will burn. The 2010 Hatch chile season was off to a rough start this year as the New Mexico harvest was delayed due to weather, but this week, chileh...

Strong Vinegar as a Natural Herbicide

Wed, 23 Jun 2010 18:18:07 +0100

I attempt to use organic techniques in the garden whenever possible, although I'm not a True Believer in the classic sense of the term. One thing I do dislike are chemical herbicides like RoundUp, but I occasionally have used it when ...

Defeat the Evil Cutworms!

Dave DeWitt — Sat, 12 Jun 2010 15:42:00 +0100

Cutworms should be called Paul Bunyan worms because when they arrive in your garden, the tender bedding plants resemble newly fallen trees. These are not worms, of course, but caterpillars of small gray moth. They're in the group called solitary surface cutworms becau...

Garden Bedding Plants and How to Save Money

Dave DeWitt — Fri, 11 Jun 2010 19:04:56 +0100

Bonnie Plants, with 62 greenhouse production facilities, 450 sales reps, and 13,000 retail accounts offering vegetable, herb, and flower plants, seems to be the largest bedding plant supplier in the country. You see their plants in big box stores like Lowe's and Wal-...

Focus on Pepper Pod Yield

Dave DeWitt — Thu, 10 Jun 2010 14:38:03 +0100

If you have pepper plants growing in your garden, I assume that you're interested in maximizing the number of pods on each plant. Well, there are a number of factors involved in this process, including: fertilizing, weed control, flowering and pollination, fruiting, and avoiding reaching the fr...

Spicy Italia, Part 2: Chile Plant Sale and Food Fair

Dave DeWitt — Mon, 10 May 2010 08:02:00 +0100

On Sunday, May 9, Marco and I worked the chile plant sale and food fair at the Azienda Agraria Sperimentale Stuard (Stuard Agricultural Experiment Station) in Parma with his new products, Spirit of Habanero Grappa and the Hab...